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Building New Life Science Companies: The Bob Langer–Terry McGuire Show on Video

One highlight of Xconomy’s September 23 forum, “How to Build a Life Sciences Company,” was my closing chat with MIT Institute Professor and Xconomist Robert Langer and Polaris Venture Partners managing partner Terry McGuire, who have teamed on a long list of local biotech startups. Now, courtesy of the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, which hosted and recorded the event, we’re pleased to post a series of video outtakes (below) in which the legendary scientist-entrepreneur and the investor-guru share their insights about how to find and fund big ideas, and how entrepreneurs and investors can form successful long-term partnerships.

As Ryan observed, speakers at the forum offered seven or eight equally valid paths for getting a new life sciences company off the ground, from the big-pharma-funding route to the non-profit route. But Langer and McGuire have perhaps the simplest and most unusual model of all. When Langer has an idea for a company, he just gives McGuire a phone call—as he has now done at least 14 times, starting with Advanced Inhalation Research, a Cambridge, MA-based developer of inhaled drug formulas that was purchased by Alkermes in 1999 for more than $100 million in stock, and extending to Living Proof (formerly Andora), another Cambridge startup focused on advanced polymers for hair-care products.

My chat with Langer and McGuire lasted about 45 minutes, enough time to cover seven big questions, with a few minutes left over for three questions from audience members. We’ve divided up the videos below by question. You can watch the videos one at a time by paging through the story, or you can jump directly to the segments that interest you by clicking on this list: